General poker news, updates and videos from online player Jackrabbitslims.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Bad Party (Gaming)

The biggest shareholder in PartyGaming and therefore party Poker, hasagreed to pay US authorities $300m (£195m) and plead guilty to acharge related to illegal online betting.

This person is also in the unfortunate position of being called AnuragDikshit, which I know I probably shouldn't find funny. He's anextremely wealthy Indian businessman who owns a 27% stake in thecompany. This will probably be a landmark case where online gamblingin the US is concerned, as it appears two other major Partyshareholders have not followed the same course of action. I alsosuspect many of the Poker and other online gambling sites stilloperating in the US will be very interest to hear the outcome of thiscase.

It's all a much more serious than I had originally thought, withDikshit potentially facing up to 2 years in prison. It seems likelythat the negotiations, coupled with Anurag's willingness to cooperatewill result in a settlement with the US DoJ, but it's certainly one towatch over the coming weeks.

On a more personal note, as a result of playing cash at FTP overthe past couple of weeks, I have also fired up a few tournies therehaving never really played anything other than the Sunday $750k. Lastnight I busted my first Full Tilt Pro, by sucking out on a shortstacked Lee Watkinson with KQ > AJ, who I didn't even realise was atmy table until I got the pop-up afterwards.

There seems to be so many of these guys in the mid stakes tourniesthat I don't think it'll be long until I'm able to cover a whole roomwith the commemorative T-Shirts.